Conventional telephone systems for the home or office include one or more telephone sets normally connected to a telephone switching center (i.e., a central office, PBX, or key telephone system) through a cable. With the advent of economical and reliable digital technology, recently it has been possible to provide enhanced functionality to the typical telephone. Thus, many companies are now manufacturing and marketing such devices as videophones, display phones, digital answering machines, screen-based, menu-driven phones and the like. These devices facilitate provision of various caller services including call forwarding, call waiting, voice store and forward, billing assistance, caller identification, and other functions. Although such devices provide significant operational capabilities as compared to conventional telephone sets, there are a myriad of service offerings and the various types of equipment have yet to be successfully integrated into a single system that can be conveniently or selectively controlled by the telephone users.
Thus, there remains a need to provide an intelligent call processing apparatus for interfacing to, to be controlled through, and to control a plurality of telephones located in a defined area, such as a home, to facilitate enhanced telephone service offerings.